Manufacture of iron and steel and their alloys.



are. 768,552.

UNITED STATES Patented August 23, 1904.

PATENT OFFICE.

MANUFACTURE OF IRON: AND STEEL AND THEIR ALLOYS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent, No. 768,552, dated August 23, 1904,

Original application filed June 16, 1903, Serial No-161,678. Divided and this application filed May-3, 1904. Serial No. 206,165.

- r I (No specimens.)

To all wltoml 2315 may concern:

magnetic concentration ment.

Be it known that I, Josn BAXERES DE AL- ZUGARAY, a citizen of Argentina, and a resi dent of Lola Villa, Bromley, in the county of Kent, England, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture of Iron and Steel and Their Alloys, of which the following is a specification, the said improvements having been described in my application, Serial No. 161,678, for Letters Patent of the United States, filed June 16, 1903, of which thepresent application is adivision.

This invention relates to'the production of iron and steel and their alloys direct from the ore, the object of the invention being to simplify the treatment of the ores of a more or less general character and to provide an effestive method of treating those ores which contain more or less large quantities of phosphorus, sulfur, andother injurious elements.

To this end the invention consists, broadly, in adding to the ore fluxing and refining agents with or without reducing or carbonaceous material.

For the purpose of this invention the ore and the materials to' be mixed with it are first pulverized and are then made into bricks or slabs for convenience of subsequent treat- If the ore'is of a magnetic character, the pulverized ore may be concentrated by or by any other suit: able process.

I am aware that it has been'proposed to mix pulverized ore with pulverized reducing or carbonaceous material and a fluxing material and to make them into bricks or slabs for convenience of treatment, and I do not, therefore, make any claim for such mixture nor for the making into bricks.

The methods of procedure just referred to are not successful, especially with what may be termed refractory ores, such as above.

referred to; but by adding to the pulverized ore a refining agent in addition to the other materials mentioned I have obtained extraordinary results even with a refractory ore.

In carrying out this invention I may proceed in one of two ways. Thus I may mix the carbonaceous material with the ore, the flux- &

ing and the refining material, and make it intoblocks or slabs, to which I give the name of carburized bricks, or I may leave outthe carbonaceous material, in which case I designate the bricks as non-carburized bricks.

In the first case the reducing agent being mixed with the ore in suitable proportion the addition of carbonaceous material in the fusing operation will be unnecessary, while in the second case the carbonaceous material will be added in the blast-furnace in the usual way; In the latter case the reducing material employed may be gas, as now well understood. The production of the carburized or non-carburized bricks will to someextent be deter-- mined by the question of transport or the use to which they are to be subsequently applied. Thus in the first case the bricks may be em+ ployed in the making of steel for the purpose of recarburizing and refining in the Bessemer furnace, while in the second case the bricks will be used in order to decarburize and refine in the Siemens, the open-hearth, or the tilting furnace. The two kinds of brick may also be used together or consecutively in the furnace, in which case they will constitute-a new process for producing steel, although the property of the non-carburized bricks will be to decarburize the excess of carbon in the carburized bricks.

For the purpose of illustrating this new process I may give the following formula, it being understood that the proportions and the materials referred to for each kind of brick In the above named constitution of the bricks the silicate or slag will act as the part of a binder, while the fiuor-spar and the chlorid serve as flux and purifying 0r refining agents, respectively. Other materials which will be suitable for the latter purpose are earthy or alkali oxids, other chlorids, fluorids, nitrates, silicates, or mixtures of these several bodies or compounds.

By mixing and treating the ore as above described the elimination of phosphorus, sulfur, and other injurious elements is effected.

The preparation of the bricks may be as follows: The pulverized materials are Well mixed together dry, and the mixture is then moistened With about ten per cent. or other suitable proportion of the quantity of the ore of lime and Water (or it may be sea-Water) and the Whole is Well kneaded. The mass is then subjected to sufficient pressure in a suitable apparatus as to form bricks or slabs of great consistency. The bricks or slabs are after- Ward dried for a few days by exposure to the air under cover and finally in a suitable oven or kiln.

As the result of my experiments and tests I have found that the treatment of the bricks carburized and non-carburized separately, as above set forth, produce a very high quality of pig-iron, which I designate refined pigiron, and obviously this material may be used for any purposes other than those above named for Which it is suitable.

In manufacturing iron and steel alloys according to this invention-such, for instance, as the several kinds of spiegel, ferromanganese, silico-spiegel, ferrosilicon, ferroaluminium, lerrochromium, and ferronickel, and also the steel of various grades and its alloys with manganese, chromium, tungsten, nickel, copper, titanium, aluminium, silicon, boron, molybdenum, vanadium, and other metals or metallic mixtures the bricks of either clun'acuu' before mentioned, according to the alloy to be obtained, are mixed with oxids, the reduced metals, or any salt of the metal or metals or non-metallic elements to be alloyed.

hat I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. The process of manufacturing iron and steel and their alloys and consisting in mixing pulverized ore with a binding material, a mixture of a fluorid and a chlorid adapted to act as both liuxing and refining agents to produce a non-carburized material, compressing the same into bricks, and fusing these bricks together with pig-iron and scrap in any wellknown manner, as described.

2. In the process of manufacturing iron and steel and their alloys, producing refined pigiron by mixing pulverized ore with a binding material, a mixture of a lluorid and a chlorid adapted to act as both fluxing and relining agents, compressing the same into bricks and fusing the said bricks in any well-known numner in the presence of carbon in excess of that required for reduction.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

JOSE BAXERES llll AIIZUGARAY.

Witnesses:

GEORGE E. Honns, l R. B. SEWARD. 

